MS-13 gang members caught roaming San Diego streets

The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended a member of a brutal Salvadoran gang, MS-13, who was nabbed as he walked along a busy San Diego street, the agency reported today.

Border Patrol agents questioned the man, who admitted to entering the country illegally. The probable gang member was booked and taken to an immigration detention center for processing.

Agents discovered the man had a criminal record tying him to the Salvadoran MS-13 gang of Mara Salvatrucha. The arrested man had many tattoos that MS-13 members often permanently inked on their bodies. One tattoo happened to be a three-point symbol used by hardcore MS-13 members, according to Border Patrol.

The MS-13 gang formed in 1980 in El Salvador and currently has approximately 70,000 members worldwide who work with many of the Mexican drug cartels, according to the FBI.

The reach of MS-13 now encompasses the United States, Canada, Mexico as well as other Central American countries. They distinguish themselves with specific tattoos, hand signals and brutal violent retributions.

According to the FBI, MS-13 operates in 42 U.S. states with 10,000 members inside America many who commit a wide variety of criminal offenses within the drug trade like murder, rape, prostitution, robbery, kidnapping, carjacking and home invasions.

The media release did not name the man arrested who is being held in jail awaiting his court case and phone calls today went unreturned regarding the man’s identity.